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Trade deal to be implemented

Barack Obama and Juan Manuel Santos were expected to hail the agreement at the news conference. | Reuters

By ASSOCIATED PRESS | 4/15/12 5:54 PM EDT

CARTAGENA, Colombia - The Obama administration said Sunday that a key free trade deal with Colombia will be fully enforced next month, an expected but important victory for the U.S. business community, which contends the pact will be an economic boon for America. Obama officials insisted they moved ahead only after the Colombia took steps to halt deadly violence against labor unionists.

President Barack Obama and Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos were expected to hail the agreement at an afternoon news conference. For Obama, it amounted to a chance to shift some focus back to his original mission in Latin America - creating jobs back home - amid the distraction of a Secret Service scandal involving prostitutes that all unfolded before Obama arrived.

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The news of the trade-deal implementation came as Obama huddled with about three dozen regional leaders in hot and steamy Cartagena as the Summit of the Americas drew to a close. Throughout his trip, Obama has touted Latin America as a growth region for U.S. businesses in an election-year economic appeal aimed at voters back home.

U.S. unions have opposed the trade deal, saying Colombia still has an abysmal record of violence against labor leaders. Union workers are a core Obama constituency, but have opposed some of his efforts to expand free trade deals, which they believe take jobs away from U.S. companies.

Under the terms of the trade pact, more than 80 percent of industrial and manufactured products exported from the U.S. and Colombia will immediately become duty free, making it cheaper for American businesses to sell their goods to the South American country. More than half of U.S. agriculture exports to Colombia will also become duty free.

In a conference call with reporters, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said Colombia has taken a number of important steps to implement the “labor action plan” that was a prerequisite for putting the trade deal into place. The plan included enforcing laws recognizing the rights of workers to organize and prosecuting past cases of violence against labor leaders.

“We believe this is an historic step in the development of our relationship with Colombia,” Kirk said

"Walmart used to be all made in the USA, employing inumerable workers in this country. Now, you'd prefer we subsist on cheap imports at the expense of those same workers?" I would prefer to see Walmart go out of business.Everywhere they go they put family owned stores out of business. They're the business killers not this trade deal.

"There is no such thing as free trade on our end of any deal. You are free to refute this claim if you can. US citizens are more concerned with low prices than employment in this country... " I don't disagree, but using Walmart for debate made little sense.

The obama and demo-crat free trade deal: Columbia ships heroin to the US and obama and demo-crats ship firearms that they use the ATF to force our legitimate gun dealers to provide. Normal demo-crat deal.

AlabamaPaul-V1.1. So essentially what you are saying is that the Trade Deal isn't good because Americans prefer cheap goods that America can't compete with. What this deal does is make entities like Walmart even more powerful putting even more small businesses out of business. So although this is what America wants, it will hurt it by our own inability to compete. Maybe an import tax is in order. It seems to me that Obama needed to make a choice between two evils. The other being Columbia's drug trade. Only time will tell if he made the right decision, until then I'm sure there will be many importers looking to buy cheap. Factory's will need the lands that a drug market currently uses. I know, wishful thinking.